Deal of the week: Great Indoors on Katy Freeway to become an office building

Hicks Ventures will redevelop the former Great Indoors home store as an office building. The 130,000-square-foot building at 10496 Katy Freeway just inside the West Belt will be expanded with a second floor.

Hicks Ventures will redevelop the former Great Indoors home store as an office building. The 130,000-square-foot building at 10496 Katy Freeway just inside the West Belt will be expanded with a second floor.

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Aerial photo of the building previously occupied by The Great Indoors. Hicks Ventures plans to redevelop the 130,000-square-foot building at 10496 Katy Freeway into an office building that will total 210,000 square feet. A second floor with 80,000 square feet will be added within the existing structure. less

Aerial photo of the building previously occupied by The Great Indoors. Hicks Ventures plans to redevelop the 130,000-square-foot building at 10496 Katy Freeway into an office building that will total 210,000 ... more

Photo: Hicks Ventures

Deal of the week: Great Indoors on Katy Freeway to become an office building

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Hicks Ventures plans to redevelop The Great Indoors home store on Interstate 10 West as an office building that will be ready for tenants as early as April.

A Hicks Ventures entity purchased the 130,000-square-foot building from Sears Holding Co. Situated on 13.5 acres at 10496 Katy Freeway just inside the West Belt, the store opened in 2001 and closed this year.

Plans are in the works to add a second floor. Among the upgrades will be new landscaping, new windows and common areas and restrooms, and two new elevators. A three-level parking garage will also be built.

The work is scheduled to begin in January and be completed before many of the buildings that are proposed or under construction in the Energy Corridor and Westchase areas, Hicks said. The building could accommodate one or more tenants.

"A lot of people are waiting for construction financing, which is hard to get on a spec deal, or for a tenant," Hicks said. "We will be able to deliver in April 2013, which will put us in good shape relative to the lack of available large blocks of space in the marketplace."

Hicks has experience in putting retail spaces to new use. When he worked for Trammell Crow Co., he was involved in converting shopping centers into Westwood Technology Center (now Southwest Corporate Center) and Greenspoint Technology Center.

The deal recalls other retail conversions, such as the Houston Community College's remodeling of the Incredible Universe electronics store for its West Loop Campus more than a decade ago, said Ed Wulfe, president of the Wulfe & Co. real estate brokerage firm.

But the supply of big-box stores that can be reinvented is not that plentiful.

"Not a lot of retail space has been built in the last three years," Wulfe said. "Good retail space, even closed stores, is in demand. Look how quickly we absorbed the Circuit City and the Borders stores."